What - How - Why Support Sheet

What? How? Why? - A Simple, Repeatable Approach to Better Analysis

Looking for a practical way to help students write more thoughtful, structured analysis? This resource provides a clear, easy-to-follow framework built around the powerful What? How? Why? approach.

Students first develop their ideas through a guided planning process, using targeted prompt questions to explore the writer’s choices and their effects. They then follow a visual flowchart that helps them organise their thinking into a coherent analytical response, with sentence starters provided for every stage.

The resource includes:

• Prompt questions to help students generate and develop analytical ideas
• A step-by-step flowchart that transforms planning into writing
• A clear What? How? Why? paragraph structure
• Sentence starters for each stage of analysis
• A versatile framework that can be applied across literature, language, poetry, drama and non-fiction texts

Designed as a reusable analytical writing crib sheet, this resource can be stuck into exercise books, displayed on desks, or enlarged as a classroom poster for constant reference. By giving students a consistent process to follow, it reduces cognitive load, builds independence, and helps create analytical writing habits that transfer across topics, texts and year groups.